Showing posts with label property. Show all posts
Showing posts with label property. Show all posts

Thursday, 18 November 2010

Gryphiusstrasse, Hamburg - Google Maps

This is pretty hilarious: after oodles of meetings and debates, Germany's largest cities have conceded to allow Google Maps street-views ... sort of ... almost ... kinda. For example, here you can just see the window of my old home on Gryphiusstrasse, Hamburg - Google Maps[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps?q=6+gryphiusstrasse,+hamburg&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Gryphiusstra%C3%9Fe+6,+Winterhude+22299+Hamburg,+Germany&ei=yDvlTKKoJ5SgngfKt4CoDQ&oi=geocode_result&ved=0CBMQ8gEwAA&t=h&layer=c&cbll=53.590973,10.00057&panoid=KmaOYjwPt0cH2CctXxVVTw&cbp=13,213.01,,0,-6.72&ll=53.584519,10.00391&spn=0.015999,0.048237&z=14&source=embed&output=svembed&w=562&h=314]
That's it, iirc, on the 3rd floor up, that would be Derek's bedroom window and to the left of that, midst the blur, the balcony where we'd launch our rockets for the New Years fireworks. Back down the other direction it seems things haven't changed in 45 years, the block across the street is still under reconstruction, although here it looks no less blocky and blurry than our staid old apartment block.
I can't wait to explore back down the bookending mainstreets to see if the businesses at least let Google map their facades. I wonder if the old 45rpm record vending machine is still there ...
For those interested (and who either read German or don't mind a google translation) Daniel Schwerd offers some explanation as to why the streets of those fair cities should be so, well, grossly pixelated.  Oh and before you waste the time to bother with it, you should know that the entire core of the Reeperbahn has been completely blacked out.

Monday, 1 December 2008

"Jazz would be illegal"


The Public Domain: "James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is legally unavailable to us, and why today’s policies would probably have smothered the World Wide Web at its inception. Appropriately given its theme, the book will be sold commercially but also made available online for free under a Creative Commons license."
If I say my sound is "like woody guthrie and joseph spence" then am I not using those artists' fame to advance my own just as much as if I were to cover a tune by either? Yet that is precisely what happened to John Coltrane for his 'cover' of My Favourite Things, the only 'royalty' due to him was for the mere 'performance' of the work. A deadman's estate got all the rest.